Coming of age in a colony: Youthhood, lawlessness, and colonial authority in Kenya, 1898-1963

This is a story of encounter between African young men and the colonial state in Kenya from the turn of the century until 1963. As African young men sought access to new possibilities of the colonial encounter, they came into increasing contact with the colonial state. Colonial authorities endeavored to define and discipline African youthhood. They imagined youthhood and generational authority as cornerstones of African life and became active participants in African age-relations, sometimes supplementing elder authority, and other times, supplanting it. This dissertation explores moments in which the activities of African young men attracted the attention and disciplinary power of the colonial state.;The dissertation first considers the ways in which the British wielded generational authority to encourage young men to labor outside fathers’ households. To do so, British officials and African chiefs manipulated age-relations and altered the rituals associated with coming of age such as circumcision. Yet, changes to coming of age prolonged the period of youthhood and complicated young men’s efforts to achieve the moral and material maturity necessary to transition into adulthood.;African young men pursued new possibilities during the colonial encounter, and two in particular attracted the ire of the British: town life and criminal activity. Colonial authorities viewed these activities as a testament to youthful indiscipline and weakened age-relations. In response, they developed a disciplinary regime for young men consisting of repatriation, corporal punishment, and incarceration in a reformatory. They sought to restrict access to unacceptable alternatives and reassert generational authority.;Finally, for many young Kikuyu, the prolonged period of youthhood had become a crisis by the 1950s. The dissertation illustrates how many young Kikuyu turned to violent conflict known as Mau Mau to escape a sense of perpetual youthhood. It also examines the British rehabilitation of young Mau Mau and others caught up in the violence. Youth camps served as colonial rites of passage that sought a resolution to the ambiguities of youthhood and to exchange moral and material maturity for loyalty. British efforts in the 1950s marked the furthest they had come in harnessing African age-relations to discipline young men.